LEVI

I want you.
I want you like politicians want public office.
I want you like Alaskan hunters want moose.
I want you like teen lovers want abortions.

I’ve wanted you since
you were propped on stage
at the Republican National Convention
looking like a donkey
in elephant skin.

My god, that tusk.

I want you like
I wanted all the dumb jocks,
the ones delighted to discover
their strength at the polls
within certain demographics.

I want you like you want fame,
like the media wants mistakes,
like babies’ mamas want child support.

I want to see Russia from your crotch.

 

BLOOD

I passed time in math class and marching band
watching handsome Cain relate to handsome Abel
with nuzzles and punches, memorizing them like
infallible geometric proofs, following off key to their
perfectly tuned trumpet and saxophone.

They shared hard features, jagged noses, blue eyes.
They shared my attention like family. They wore
birthright uniforms of gold and brown I admired
with jealous froth at the corners of my hungry mouth,
only-child quiet and waiting.

When God invented brothers
he intended for them to be one year apart.
It pained me to think
they could destroy one another, that the sun
could go dark and take along the moon,

I couldn’t stand to see something so beautiful collapse
so I offered myself, my jaw for their fists,
absorbing their fate so they could survive,
Cain and Abel, living happily ever after,
drops of heredity running down my grateful chin.

 

© 2010 Bryan Borland

Bryan Borland is a poet and writer living in Little Rock, Arkansas. His work has or will soon appear in Ganymede, Breadcrumb Scabs, The Moose & Pussy, The Foliate Oak, and on various e-zines and websites, including Young America Poets, vox poetica, Wordsalad, and Shape of a Box. His first full-length collection, My Life as Adam, will be available in 2010. Visit his website at www.bryanborland.com.